You Don't Suppose...

... that these two would have anything to do with finding these monster bowling pins stuffed inside my yoga mat when I opened my bag at class the other night, would you?

Pulled one out, and well... there was another.  Pulled that one out, and well... there was another.  Pulled it out, and well...   when I tried to repack them in after class, I wondered how they managed to get the whole set in there.  Maybe it's time to have them start packing their own bags when we travel.  I would imagine this will start happening with my grocery bags in the not so distant future.

Ghost Busters

Comin' at ya like the ghost buster that I am. All jokes courtesy of Gavyn.  Just today, on the car ride home after picking them up from school, in fact.  Here we go: 

• How did the ghost make his toast? With his ghoster.
• Why did the ghost eat once a day? Cuz he went boop. (Boop... get it?... poop... heh.)
• What is the squid's favorite thing to bring on Santa's sleigh? His sqwhip.

 

Booya!  Man, I love that kid.

If You Give a Mom a Blog...

My husband says it's time for me to start posting again.  He comes home from work and reads it on his lunch hour.  Hey there, Sweet Cheeks.  Heh.  His words last night... exactly...  "You're kind of a binge blogger.  You don't post anything for awhile and then you post a bunch and I can't keep up with them all."

So... where to begin.  Where I left off?  Because if I do, there's guaranteed to be a flurry of posts to catch up with where I've been since Thanksgiving.  Lots can happen in four weeks.

I don't ever think I reviewed my field trip with Gavyn to the "Give a Mouse a Cookie" theater production.  What a total blast.  I may or may not have been the only adult in the entire school children auditorium packed audience that laughed out loud at the fun acting.  And I discovered a few new children's books I'd like to try out, too.

I well remember my first theater production... it was a field trip to a local community college campus theater for the symphony performance of Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf.  And it was magical.  The next year it was for the symphony performance of John Williams' The Star Wars Trilogy.  And it was also magic.  I wanted to be a part of that magic with Gavyn's first experience so I made a mad scramble to sign up to be a chaperone (limited adult supervision on this one) when the chaperone sign up list came out at the first of the school year.

I think my favorite was the book they started off with, Martha Speaks!  You'll have to check it out, Ethel.  An adorable story about a dog that eats a little girls alphabet soup and can talk.  However, she ends up talking too much and the family grows weary of her speaking and hurts her feelings.  They leave for the evening and a burglar comes in to rob the family house.  To keep Martha occupied and from barking, he feeds Martha alphabet soup.  Big mistake.  When Martha speaks and calls 911, it gives the burglar such a shock it foils all his plans of thievery and gets him arrested.  Clever.

Then there was Imogene's Antlers broke into three parts.  Gavyn got quite a kick out of that one.  Well, *ahem* his Mom did, too.  Especially Part I when the doctor comes in and while hesitant to do a diagnosis regarding a little girl who's sprouted antlers out of her head overnight and maybe even made a few escape attempts, finally is forced to just solve the problem by prescribing lollipops for the whole family before making a mad dash out the door.  Makes sense.  Lollipops solve everything.

It was cute, however, to hear a collective rumbling murmur of excitement ripple through the audience when it was finally time for Give a Mouse a Cookie.  It was apparent, this is what all these elementary kids had been waiting for.  A collective expression that said... finally!

Gavyn's favorite in our review on the way home was Master Man - described on the Theatreworks, Inc. website as  "A man whose muscles are as big as his ego earns his comeuppance when he claims to be the world's strongest man in this Nigerian tall tale." The baby who was able to lift all things heavy without breaking a sweat really cracked Gavyn up.

A fun, enjoyable discovery for Gavyn's Momma was Borreguita and the Coyote - described on the Theatreworks, Inc. website as "The classic Mexican tale of a little lamb, or borreguita, who uses her wits to escape a hungry coyote."

Over the past few years, I have discovered a new favorite.  Children's books.  I think I am going to start collecting them.  And they will fit nicely on the empty shelves in the room I have decided to make my fairy tale/nursery rhyme/children's lit themed room.  I think some Where the Wild Things Are mural art (and maybe a Jack in the Beanstalk one in one of the corners, too?)  will complement the Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit decor already there very nicely.  I couldn't bear to part with it once the room was not a baby nursery room anymore and this will be my way of working around making it more "grown up".  Can't wait to get started.  Grown up is overrated.

Do you remember your first magical theater experience?  What was it?

Not Happening

I won't tolerate unkindess directed at anyone but myself on this blog.  Sorry.  Comments on my last blog post started to get out of hand.  I don't know who you are or what the situation is, but you need to take that kind of garbage elsewhere.   If you want to talk with me directly about something that legitimately "concerns" you, contact me directly at craignlani at juno dot com.  All right, folks, carry on.  And a huge thank you to those of you who helped me look at the situation I posted about (which is now deleted) with more compassion and understanding.  We heard this weekend about the compassion that Jesus showed the world, and I want to have and show more of it myself.

What Do You Think?

So... I work primarily with a well-known women's farm risk education program.  I had the bright idea we could sell/merchandise these shirts?  What do you think?  If you were a farm woman, would you buy one?  What would you be willing to pay?  Thanks in advance for helping me do my job.

Wabbit Season

So here's a fun little comparison.  I was feeling... well... not so good about my run time this year at the Living History Farms Cross Country 7 mile run this morning.  However, in looking back my 2007 Finish Time = 1:41:10.  Five yars later, I finished with a 1:21:47.  (And it's such a fun race, I'm also wondering...why did it take me so long to do this race again?)  So, do you think you get faster as you get older? In another five years will I be running a 1:02:10?  Not gonna lie, though. Insufficient training = pain.  Lots and lots of pain.  As in the guy that took my chip off at the end asked if I was ok... and followed that with "you look terrible".  In my opinion, we had the awesomest costumes at the race... Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.  A last minute inspiration from my husband on Thursday evening. I packed that heat for the entire race. No wonder I was so sweaty when I was done.  For all my post-race stiffness and cramping and limping, I think I'm recovering nicely.  We'll see if I can bend my knee in the morning.

Pink Fog

I have to admit that for whatever reason October was a difficult month for me.  Waking up early one morning early on in the month, I managed to step on my glasses in the dark.  Hearing the fatalistic snap of plastic under my heel before I saw the irreversible damage in the harsh glare of the overhead bathroom light a moment later seemed to be the catalyst that sent me on my downward spiral of impatient sadness and anger.  Which lasted.  And lasted.  For the entire month. of. October.  It would not end.  At first, I thought it was just a string of bad luck.  Then I thought it was everyone else.  Pretty soon I realized it was just me.

A good friend landed in the hospital with her three month old overnight not knowing what exactly was wrong.  No matter.  Spilling soda on my white shirt on the way to work was more insufferable.  Another good friend of mine was sandwiched in a four car pile up on the Interstate on her way to work (thankfully no one was badly hurt... just $9000 of damage to the car...).  No matter.  The car that repeatedly cut me off as I tried to zig zag my way through traffic galled me more.  Unsuspecting people became victim to the bite of my uncontrolled tongue over the minorest of vocal communication missteps.  I was oversensitive to everyone's (and I mean EVERYONE... no one was exempt) thoughts, words, actions, or opinions.  Even my own.

I thought often of Kendra who always seemed to find a postive spin on things.  No matter how bad the circumstance.  And felt guilty because I couldn't.

I'm not entirely sure of the reason my October was so miserable.  Likely it was largely my own frame of mind.  My own doing.  But I have my suspicions that this world's claim on October being Breast Cancer Awareness month and involuntarily turning my world pink with their campaign had something to do with it.  At every turn I was reminded of Kendra.  A reminder that she and so many others hadn't won their earthly fight (I have no doubts about her winning the eternal one!) against breast cancer.  That for all our buying of pink and pushing for people to "Fight Like a Girl!" in support of finding a cure, it still doesn't bring her back.

The two bright spots of my month did involve a little pink, however.  Twice as I left for work, I was greeted with the soft pink glow of a sky filled with the magnificence of another sunrise.

Slowly I'm coming out of my pink fog.  But oh my... how we miss her.  And this, somehow, while stunningly beautiful...  breathtaking, really... has made it more final.

I've witnessed many sunrises and sunsets.  But her sunset?  Well, it was beautiful to watch.  Sunsets always bring the promise of another sunrise and I can't wait to watch that one with her and with you.

So thankful for hope.

Josie

Gavyn's school friend for the past two years has been Josie. I love observing my boys choice of friends and noting that they pick them based on personality and imagination. If you have no imagination? Chances are my boys aren't going to hang out with you much. AND you're going to find my boys just a little "weird". Weird equals interesting in my book. Imagine our delight when she visited the pumpkin farm at the same time we did. Now THAT is good timing. What are the odds? Great minds think alike, I guess.

Yesterday, the boys came home from school all worked into a frenzy about the election. "Josie says that if Mitt Romney wins, he's going to give us all candy. Do you believe that, Mommy?... Zach's Dad got so mad at the phone and was saying all the bad words at it and then cut the telephone line because he didn't want to get any phone calls... If Obama wins, everyone's going to get an Easter egg hunt." Their innocent take on Presidential campaigning is not all that far from the truth. I siezed the moment and told them... "Just remember. NOTHING is ever free." I wonder if they'll remember that? Maybe I should start having them buy candy to illustrate my point. Have you seen the price of a bag of candy these days?

Oh.  And yes.  I voted.

Weekend Cross Country Fun

This weekend a good friend took me south to a ranch where they were holding their 10th warm up cross country race to the Living History Farms cross country race I'll be doing here on November 17th.  It was a spectacular unexpected surprise.  A beautiful day.  Running with temperatures in the 50s.  The surprise was that I had to walk three times... I could almost walk the hills faster than I could run them.  I almost sprained my ankle three times, too... the leaves make seeing the sticks and logs and rocks and holes tricky.  And one of those times I almost wiped out a group of people running behind me as I slipped and had to catch myself on a log going down a hill.  I have a feeling there's a "trick" or two I need to learn about cross country/trail racing, but I must say, I can see how easy it would be to get hooked.

At the end a local restaurant served beef stew and cornbread and carrot cake.  Imagine my surprise when a 40:33 4 mile race yielded a 3rd place finish in my age group out of 19 others.  Evidently a 10 minute mile is not all that easy to accomplish in a trail race of this kind?  Who knew?  At the end, they had a pull up contest and I was curious how many I could do.  Men who could do 20 got a cap.  Women who could do 5 got a cap.  I was hoping to get 20, but stopped short at 15.

There was just something really nice about standing around while they gave out awards with a cup of hot apple cider in hand on a pretty fall day in the woods.

And the orange "Award Winner" mug wasn't all that bad, either.  Probably helps that my favorite color just happens to be orange.  I might just have to sign up for ranch running again next year.

It was THEIR Idea

Halloween 2012 nearly sapped me of all my creative energy.  The boys have been on a Lord of the Rings movie marathon ever since we decided it would be ok to let them watch the series.  Kekoa determined he wanted to use my wig from last Halloween and turn himself in to an Uruk Hai orc.  Gavyn decided being a ringwraith would be all right.  I was running out of steam this month.  Fast.  And had determined this was the year I was not going to dress up.  The boys had other plans for me.  I must be Arwen, the elf princess.  And so it goes...

  

 

Which meant, of course, that Daddy should be Aragorn.  Ummm... well, we kind of left his costume a little last minute and so it was a bit uninspired and hodge podge.  He wasn't so impressed with what I pieced together.  I, however, thought my tin foil leaf pin was a masterpiece.

 

While we didn't make it to the Renaissance Festival this year.  I guess maybe, we have a head start on what we'll dress up for it as next year.

And that, my friends, is the happy ever after ending of our October and Halloween story.  A month I was not entirely sad to see come to a close.  And now.  We wait with bated breath.  For the unveiling of the first movie of the next series.  The Hobbit.  The boys are counting down the days.  All three of them.

YEE-Hawwww!

I haven't had a whole lot to laugh about this month which means, I guess, the few times (two I can think of, to be exact) they've come along are memorable.  Craig's parents took us out to Craig's choice of restaurant the other night to celebrate his birthday:

And this is what happens, I guess, when you're turning 48 and you get free ice cream.  You do not get to talk the waitresses into letting one of your sons sit on it instead.  You MUST sit in the saddle yourself.  Or they take the ice cream away?  Obviously, he didn't try it to find out.

For some reason it struck me as funny.  A grown man sitting in a saddle having the restaurant respond to the question, "Can I get a YEE-hawwww?"  Oh how I love this man.

So while the month hasn't held a whole lot of laughs for me, it sure has given me lots of reasons to be thankful.  And that's not all bad, either.

 

I guess I'll mark this down as Reason Why I Love My Husband #1,000,013.

The Importance of Birthday Cake

After observing some recent comments and reflections from friends, I have come to the conclusion one of the most important things is to have a birthday cake on one's birthday.  And not just any cake, but... a homemade birthday cake.  So I rolled up my sleeves and reluctantly passed over the Duncan Hines Devil's Food cake mix box sitting on the pantry shelf and made *gasp* Pioneer Woman's The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever. for Craig.  Anything that calls for a pound of powdered sugar in the frosting has to be good, right?  I couldn't resist attempting to health it up a little by switching out the buttermilk with Chobani's Plain 0% Fat Greek Yogurt, however.  I promise, you can't even tell.  The sugar drowns it out.

So we woke up our Daddy by singing him Happy Birthday while we jumped on the bed.

Then we took him out to our favorite fancy restaurant for lunch where he had his Salad Nicoise and Peanut Butter Pie.

Gavyn gave the chocolate mousse a thumbs up rating.

Desserts?  Decimated.

I hope he had a good day.  Happy Birthday to the best husband and Daddy-o in the whole wide world!

Spirits in the Gardens

This was a nice surprise that happened yesterday.  Wasn't planning on it, but the stars aligned and the temperatures jumped up into the upper 70s and it just seemed like the right thing to do.  Plus it gave us a chance to experiment with our Halloween costumes.  Kekoa's was inspired from The Lord of the Ring's movies.  Can you guess who he is?  I can't look at the pictures of him without hearing the movie theme music played throughout.  Bah-dah-dahhhhh-dah-dum!  Bah-dah-dahhhh-dah-dum!  Bonus:  Grandma spent the afternoon with us.

Here's Lookin' at You

This here eyeball has been stuck to our ceiling all week.  So if you look up.  You may find someone's watching you.

 

Cupcakes for the cookout tomorrow.  Noticing a theme here?



 

And another Pinterest project bites the dust.  Took longer than I thought.  The "four eyes" and eyelashes was their idea.  I was too tired to fight it.

It was not as easy as it looked.



 

But Mr. Four Eyes is starting to grow on me.  I can appeciate a little originality every once in awhile.

Them Bones...Them Bones

I scouted out the school lunch menu for the month and strategically planned my first school lunch appearance with the boys for today.  Chicken, broccoli and apple sauce were on the menu.  Gavyn ate well only because he was after the "bones".  He's always been about the skeleton.  Human skeleton.  Chicken skeleton.  Any skeleton or bone will do.

Earlier this year, the boys came home with a little surprise.  Dinosaur bones they found on Grandpa and Grandma's farm.  Yeah.  Pretty sure we're the only house in Ames with dried cow bones in our backyard.